


Only a Dream

by Bluewolf458



Series: Delayed backup [2]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 15:11:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14936687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Blair is sitting by Jim's bed in the hospital





	Only a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 sentinel bingo prompt 'happy ending'

Only a Dream

by Bluewolf

Jim lay unconscious in the hospital bed, as he had done for nearly a month.

Although he had been working as a cop for three years, Blair still didn't have the length of service that would give him time off to spend unlimited hours at his partner's side. However, knowing that Jim's best chance of recovery was to have Blair beside him, Simon had spoken to the Chief of Police and the Commissioner, reminding them that Blair had actually been working with Major Crime for nearly seven years, more than half of that time unpaid.

Both men knew just how much help Blair had given Major Crime in those first years when he had been 'merely' an observer, and agreed that Blair could have as much time off as necessary to sit with his partner.

***

As he sat beside Jim, gently rubbing the sentinel's hand, Blair's mind replayed the events of that terrible day.

Justin Carver's shot, almost randomly fired at Jim, had been both very lucky for Carver but also horrendously unlucky for him. Seeing Jim fall, Blair had fired his gun almost by reflex; and Carver had also fallen. Blair kicked his gun away and had just finished putting on handcuffs when the delayed backup of Barrett and Gardner entered. Barrett's response to the scene in front of him had been startled -

_Barrett's jaw dropped. "You shot him?"_

_"He'd just shot my partner. What else did you expect me to do?"_

It was the rookie Gardner who had taken charge of getting the shaken Tommy Prince into the police car and taken to give a statement - and Blair had made sure he had included that in his statement. Gardner deserved the credit.

Blair forced the picture out of his mind. "Come on, Jim," he murmured. "You've had a good sleep. It's time for you to wake up. Simon's doing his best, but I don't think he'll be able to persuade our bosses to let me stay here much longer. I've already had far more time off than I've been due."

There was no response.

Blair sighed. He was sure Jim was in some kind of zone, rather than just being unconscious, and he had tried almost everything he could think of to pull Jim back to awareness; he had tried most of the tricks he had found worked in the past. He had slipped a strong-tasting sliver of mint under Jim's tongue - no response. He had waved an uncorked bottle of smelling salts under Jim's nose - Jim's nose had wrinkled, but there had been no other response. He had long since run out of anything new to say, but hearing hadn't worked. He constantly rubbed Jim's hand - the one that didn't have a drip attached - but touch wasn't working either. And with Jim's eyes shut, Blair couldn't try sight.

What was left?

_'He passes the way of the shaman to you...'_ The memory, as always, depressed him. He had no training. He often felt guilty that he had done nothing with Incacha's... legacy, he supposed he could call it, but he couldn't leave his sentinel and where in Cascade could he find someone to teach him a shaman's skills?

But it was all that was left... the only thing he hadn't tried. Yet at the same time, trying that was surely akin to trying to translate an article in Chinese (which he couldn't read) directly into one of the Inuit dialects that didn't have a written alphabet.

His thoughts were interrupted by a nurse coming in and bustling around for a minute taking readings. He looked at her, and she shook her head sadly. "No change," she murmured sympathetically as she finished writing up the notes, and moved quietly away.

With the nurse out of the way, he knew that it would be a while before anyone else checked on Jim.

_All right_ , he thought. _Chinese into Inuit it is!_

He left one hand lying on Jim's, leaned back and closed his eyes, visualizing a candle, and concentrated on it.

He felt his mind drifting, and opened his eyes... to find himself in the blue jungle. He looked around.

_There!_

Jim's panther was lying, not exactly alert, but at least paying attention to its surroundings. Blair walked over to it, and laid his hand on its head.

"Hello, Blackie," he said softly.

'Blackie' was his name for it; he had no idea what, if anything, Jim called it.

"Are you on your own?"

It blinked at him, then morphed into a Chopek warrior.

"You have finally come," he said.

Blair sighed. "I have no training," he replied. "I have long felt that I was neglecting Incacha's gift to me, but I could find nobody to give me the training I needed to use it. But I think that Enqueri has retreated to here, and I need to find him and encourage him to - well, return to his body. It is not good for the Guardian of the Great City to lie unconscious, unresponsive. Am I right in thinking that his senses have overwhelmed him?"

"Yes. His injury is serious, but he is unresponsive because his senses are controlling his mind."

Blair looked around. "Where is he?"

"You are his helper, the one he trusts to keep his senses from overwhelming him. You have done not too badly in the past - and finding him here, now, will complete your bond." And the warrior morphed back into the panther.

Blair glared at the animal, then looked around, hoping that his wolf might be there and a little more forthcoming; but there was no sign of it, and when he returned his attention to the panther... it had disappeared.

"Spirit animals!" he muttered, frustration in his voice.

He looked around again, emptying his mind of everything but the one thought.

_Jim._

And then he felt a mental pull, and followed it.

He went deeper and deeper into the jungle, and began to wonder just where he would end up. For a moment he wondered what the next nurse to go into Jim's room at the hospital would think, finding him sitting there unresponsive, then he decided that she would simply think he had fallen asleep, shake him to waken him - which would certainly pull him out of meditation - and tell him to go home and go to bed. Get a good night's sleep. And not to dare going back to the hospital until he'd done that.

Was there a Temple of the Sentinels here, in the blue jungle? It seemed possible. He had visited it occasionally - but apart from Jim, the spirit animals (and their human avatars) and Incacha, he had never been aware of anyone else there - or even any other spirit animal. And Jim had never indicated that he was aware of the presence of another sentinel, any time he had been there. So did each sentinel have his own spirit realm, where only his guide and anyone who was an influence on his life in any way, could visit?

He decided he must remember to ask Incacha, the next time the Chopek shaman made an appearance. Though he doubted he would get a straight answer. The spirits believed in making people think for themselves.

Blair jogged on.

The trees began to thin; he could see further ahead, and the terrain began to look familiar. The ground was sloping upwards, and he knew what was ahead of him.

As if the knowing was enough to let him take a short cut, he found himself standing beside a familiar tent; and a few yards away, a man was sitting, gazing out over a small lake.

"Jim!" He took the dozen steps necessary to take him to the man's side.

Jim looked at him, a troubled expression on his face. "Chief? You were behind me... I didn't think you were hurt. Have you died too?"

"And if I have?" Blair asked. "If I've joined you it means we're together. But you're right - I wasn't hurt. Currently I'm sitting beside your bed in Cascade general, waiting for you to regain consciousness."

"Regain... But I died!"

"No, you didn't. You were seriously injured, but the doctors fixed that. You've just never wakened. The only reason you haven't been transferred to a long-term care unit is that your Dad has been paying for you to stay at Cascade General... so that I can spend roughly eighteen hours a day trying to pull you out of this zone you're in. But nothing I've tried so far has worked, and I'm getting just a little tired of trying to find something new to say. So today I decided to try to follow you into your zone; I'm sitting there meditating, and if I suddenly disappear it's because a nurse had come in and 'wakened' me. But it's worked. I'm here. And Jim, believe me, you're alive."

"I thought... I've been spending time at the loft, but I thought I was a ghost... Chief! Barrett - he deliberately delayed answering your call for backup. His partner - just a few weeks out of training - tried to persuade him not to... "

"Barrett was never happy that I moved into a detective's position after just firearms training. He thought that I was a soft academic.  He got a... let's just say a shock when he realized I'd shot the guy who shot you. It's made him rethink his opinion of me. He's learned differently; learned that I will kill to defend you."

"You killed that guy in the store?"

"Yes. I thought he had killed you. But Jim, you're alive and doing well; you've had a month of recovery time, so the worst of the pain and discomfort is over. Come back with me. The doctors will probably insist that you have another day or two in hospital while they check that you're not going to collapse unconscious again, but then you can get back to light duty and I... " He chuckled. "I can stop dodging what I’m being paid to do now so that I can sit beside you, and actually get some work done - though I'd guess Simon will have us both checking out cold cases for the next two or three weeks."

"Probably," Jim agreed.

"Now - " Blair reached out and took Jim's hand - the same one that he had been stroking in the hospital. "Ready to go back?"

Jim nodded. "Ready."

Blair concentrated for a moment, then became aware of the smells of a hospital. He raised his head.

Jim blinked his eyes open. His nose wrinkled. "God, this place stinks!"

"Just don't zone again to escape the stink," Blair said, and reached for the call button.

Seconds later, a nurse rushed in. Blair grinned at her. "He's awake!"

***

Blair was right; the doctors insisted that Jim spend another couple of days in the hospital, but when he showed no sign of relapsing into unconsciousness they allowed him to go home.

During those days he had a fairly steady stream of visitors; his father and brother, his colleagues at the PD - and not just the ones in Major Crime; the Prince family and even the staff of one or two of the other local stores Jim and Blair patronized. And even after he got home, many of them kept visiting for the first few days.

Finally the doctors cleared him to return to work - as he and Blair expected, he was restricted to light duty, aka deskwork, for the first couple of weeks. Nobody was taking four weeks of unconsciousness lightly - and even Blair, who knew it was a zone-out, not simple unconsciousness, insisted that Jim be careful for those first days back at work.

And each evening they sat on the couch, ostensibly watching whatever was on television, but instead of them each sitting at his own end of it they sat together, with Jim's arm along the back, not quite touching Blair but knowing it would take very little effort on his part to add touch to his awareness of his friend, amicably sharing one bowl of popcorn instead of each having his own.

Blair was relaxed, content... and Jim, with his dream of being dead always clear in his mind, couldn't have been happier.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> There are things in the earlier story, Delayed Backup, that this ignores; but everything that happened in the earlier story, after Jim was shot, was all Jim's dream - what he thought could, or would, happen - even though it was told from Blair's PoV.


End file.
